Toronto ugliest highrise building

[adma]

Perhaps if the Lumsden Building must be mentioned, due regard must be paid to the grimy service/utility filth that currently pollutes (esp. when viewed from the east) the rooftop of the Victoria Building at 44 Victoria/25 Adelaide...

 

[marcus_a_j]

 

[ShonTron]

Ding ding ding. We have a weiner!

This is such a hard list. I'm not at all a brutalist fan, but can appreciate the best examples of this era - basically Robarts, New City Hall (it's a rather warm and inviting brutalism), perhaps U of T Med Sci and a few others, but it left us with disasters, like Ryerson Library/Jorgenson podium, Pri's 77 Elm and Grange Park and 666 Spadina towers (though his stuff in Annex and at Jane/Exbury is worthy). I think Sheraton is a really unfortunate mistake, and has an extremely dead street-level right across from City Hall and on one of our premier streets (also my main complaint with the Opera House, also dead to Queen).

Then there's the lo-po dreck, like the towers on St. Patrick. Or the just bad low rises that Archivist posted. RoCP is just really unfortunate as well, that they turned out poorly, and f**ked up the Bay Street Old City Hall view terminus.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

I feel stabby when I see this building.

 

[Automation Gallery]

Come on thats not ugly,if thats the case half of Toronto building fall in that category.I kind of think this Rogers building looks very European.

 

[ShonTron]

I still call it the Confederation Life Building (much like the other renamed building with Rogers written all over it, but I will recognize the name Rogers campus) and that is one of the better pomo buildings around.

 

[adma]

I just noticed--nobody's mentioned 1001 Bay yet. The nastiest, sleaziest 80s condo downtown by far.

 

[Strange Advance]

I registered here in part because I'm amazed no one in this thread has mentioned those ghastly plastic abominations, the Chrysler Towers, at Bayview/401. How those things were approved by anyone with functioning eyeballs and neuro-sensory receptors is beyond me.

 

[taal]

If you're referring to how they meet the street, or the layout of the neighborhood ... then many, just maybe, it'd be on some bottom # list.
But just looking at the building it self, it's honestly not that bad! It get's so much hate the poor thing
Just curious, have you seen it in person. I find in person from a medium distance it's not bad!
I like the contrast in the colour and the roof! I mean, I think it's a nice touch.

Honestly, if there was only 1 of them, and if it was slightly higher (giving it a similar look) I think it would receive more love all around ... tell me I'm right!

 

[Whoaccio]

The buildings themselves are probably okay. I just think the entire concept of it is so, well, cheap. It sort of reminds me of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas. Just looking at it, there is nothing wrong. The entire idea is just so crude though. Its even worse that there are multiple towers. If it were just one, the extent to which the builders bastardized some truly marvelous architecture wouldn't be as pronounced. As it is though, you can see the bastardization process in action as you go from one tower to the other, with each progressively displaying more disregard for things like originality, style or soul. These buildings make me look forward to a zombie apocalypse, so William Van Alen can rise from the dead and strangle whoever built these.

 

[christiesplits]

I just noticed--nobody's mentioned 1001 Bay yet. The nastiest, sleaziest 80s condo downtown by far.

I think half of Bay Street from Bloor to Dundas belongs on the list of shame... its absolutely treacherous, with Murano being the only sign of hope.

 

[marcus_a_j]

Before the City got involved, the original design for NY Towers was ok at best. They were taller and more slender than what was actually built. The City wouldn't allow for the additional floors Kirkor proposed, and as a result they added those extra units to the other floors making it look the Chrysler Building got stuck in a vice and squished vertically causing it to get shorter and fatter.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I was thinking of nominating the North Yuck Towers too. They represent the worst of all possible worlds - pretentious faux copyism made even more ludicrous by the effects of NIMBY squash-and-spread interference.

 

[Archivist]

The NY Towers always make me laugh. They're like the punch line of some architectural joke. I can't hate them because they have brought mirth to me.

Though they are atrocious in every conceivable way known to man.

 

[Ramako]

Well, they are... bold, I guess.